ness of the future, which invariably characterize the populace of great cities, were manifested by the provincial Romans, amidst the latest calamities of the empire; and Treves, the capital of the Prefecture of the Gauls, was not the only city that was surprised and pillaged by barbarians, while the citizens, crowned with garlands, were engaged in applauding the games of the circus.

Such was the interior of the empire at the commencement of the fourth century; such was the population which should have resisted the universal invasion of savages. The latter frequently left the citizens only the choice of dying armed or dying in submission; and the descendants of the proud Romans, the heirs of all the glory which had been once acquired by the most exalted virtue, were so degraded by the laws and the state of society in which they lived, that when the alternative was offered to them, they uniformly preferred to die like cowards.

ON THE SUPERSTITIONS OF HIGHLANDERS AND LONDONERS.

POPULAR superstitions are always popular subjects with London readers. As an apology for paying them so much attention, we gravely expatiate on their importance in throwing light on the character of a people. True enough, as applied to certain inquirers into manners and customs, and dealers in national antiquities. But how comes it that this sort of reading is generally in favour with those who care not a doit about these matters? Doubtless our love of the strange and the marvellous has some share in creating this partiality; and, as far as that goes, I have not a word to say against it. However, there is a more subtle, and therefore a more mischievous feeling. A man who flatters himself he is in no degree superstitious, is apt to gratify his vanity in the opportunity of looking down upon his fellows; and the conscious man is glad to imagine that others are greater fools than himself. For we always think a cap and bells are ten times more ridiculous on another's head than on our own, especially if there is a slight difference in the fashions. I have heard a sailor, with a child's caul suspended from his neck, laugh till "his lungs began to crow like chanticleer" at the idea of a camphor-bag as a talisman. And who dares laugh at the sailor? Not the London public, surely. They are in the same predicament. While they halt upon crutches, they should not make a jest of bandy legs. Yet they encourage every kind of story exposing the foibles of their neighbours, while they keep their own in a corner, as cordials for private use, and, like dram-drinkers in a sly way, are worse than your bare-faced tipplers.

How many works there are, putting those on foreign countries out of the question, where, directly or indirectly, the Irish and the Welsh, the Highlander and the Lowland Scotch, the English divided into counties, and again subdivided into districts, have claimed attention to their several fire-side mythologies, chiefly with an eye to London patronage. Among these the Highland superstitions stand pre-emi

nent. The famous Scotch novelist has revelled in them, and to some purpose. They formed the pivot of Dr. Johnson's circumvolutions among the hills. They are the allspice of Pennant's mouldy Antiquities, preserving them still upon our shelves. Our Northern Tours, our Highland Guides, nay the very road-books, have a hit at them. And lo! that indefatigable lady, Mrs. Grant, has given us two volumes of Essays expressly upon them, Now, how comes it that the wise inhabitants of the capital presume to chuckle over these stories ?— Would they make us believe they have none of their own?-Do they go on the maxim, that those who laugh most are least likely to be laughed at?-Impudent rogues! But I can forbear no longer. Know, then, I have been a spy among you, have narrowly watched you, carefully noted down all your mental delinquencies, beginning at the largest streets and squares (not forgetting the gaming-houses-a rich store), and gradually descending to your smallest lanes and alleys, have classed them according to their several demerits, and in due time intend to throw them at your heads in the shape of a pleasant quarto. The booksellers indeed, and they well know their chapmen, allege that the sale must necessarily be limited to country customers. I heed them not-publish I will. In the mean time, being somewhat impatient on this matter, I will give them a slap, by way of prologue, as threatened in the heading of this article. It seems a good subject for the Magazine. The only objection is, there may be "offence in it" to the town readers. However, I promise, as a make-peace, to introduce, for their amusement and instruction, two or three traditionary tales from my collection of Highland Wonders. Besides, the offence-takers have it in their power to skip over the objectionable

passages.

In turning over the MSS. hereafter to be condensed into my intended quarto, I find there are innumerable proofs, from the earliest to the present times, of the extreme credulity of Londoners in all matters relating to the supernatural. Some of these must not be passed over. A prognostication of a partial deluge in 1524, which was assuredly to wash the city into the Thames, had the effect of creating such an alarming hydrophobia, that triple rents were offered for temporary residences at Highgate, Hampstead, and Harrow-on-the-Hill. But this, you will say, happened in the days of ignorance. Let us then take a jump to 1750, a more enlightened period. In that year a madcap Life-Guardsman prophesied that on the 5th of April an earthquake would reduce both London and Westminster to a heap of ruins. The account I have before me states, that on the evening of the preceding day, "multitudes of the inhabitants abandoned their houses, and retired into the country; the roads were thronged with carriages of persons of fashion; the principal places within twenty miles of London were so crowded, that lodgings were procured at a most extravagant price; the less wealthy took refuge in boats on the river; and the fields adjacent were crowded with people." Bravo! And to crown all, instead of taking it quietly, they turned round upon the soldier, called him a stupid fellow, clapped him into prison, and endeavoured to wreak their vengeance by pelting him with sundry old

Acts of Parliament, touching wizardism. Not long since we had a grand comet, brandishing its "fiery tresses in the sky," frightening our watchful citizens, and setting lean wits to work out the cause of its hanging so immediately over London, and no where else. The South-Sea Bubble, and the Quart-bottle Conjurer, are pretty anecdotes, though not exactly to my present purpose. Not so the Cocklane Ghost-that is a case in point, and may not be forgotten. Then we had the Prophet Brothers, Joanna Southcott, and Parson Towser; but they were errors of so melancholy a nature that I care not to dwell upon them.

Yet all these, you may tell me, are past, "numbered with the things that are gone," and it is hoped we "ne'er shall look upon their like again." Some of them, however, are rather modern; and without being over-inquisitive, we may still find strange matters in hand. Cowper says

"Where finds philosophy her eagle eye?”

and then plumply answers-" in London!" But I beg leave to ask, in plain prose, if we have not astrologers at Walworth, and in Westminster especially, with plenty of customers at five guineas for the casting of a nativity? Where, but in London, are fortune-tellers the best fortune-makers? Does not a professor of animal magnetism live in St. Martin's-lane, and are not the head-quarters for anodyne necklaces in Long Acre? Even metallic tractors have not lost their powers of attraction, as a shop in the Strand can testify. And as for conjuring doctors, who charm away the tooth-ache, warts, dropsy, jaundice, and all sorts of diseases, we have them at every turn.

To enumerate the manifold interpretations of dreams would be too laborious a task. Happily it is unnecessary, as there are already some popular works written solely on that subject, and printed in London, to which I gladly refer my readers. The superstitions of gamblingtables and lottery-offices would likewise prove too voluminous. Besides, they affect persons only at certain times, and are not applicable (thank Heaven!) to all classes alike. It is better to pass by them entirely, and come at once to those little deviations from the reasoning faculty common to every body, and which strike at the " business and bosoms of men" and women; I mean those signs and omens of domestic life, wherein the character of the Londoner is more particularly displayed. Yet, if that be the case, it is a heavy charge against them, for they will be found to be, like themselves, smoke-dried, very mummies, without pith or meaning, dull, unintellectual, spiritless, bald, "stale, flat, and unprofitable.' The worst is, they, for the most part, turn upon our uneasy thoughts-more upon our fears than our hopes. Those of a pleasurable nature, which from time to time are imported from the country, soon perish in our stifling atmosphere. For instance, any thing connected with love, such as the ceremony of the white of an egg on All Hallow eve, the pod with nine peas over the door, kissing under the misletoe, sleeping with a piece of bridecake under the pillow-these, I observe, are never regarded, unless by some late settlers in town with the bloom of a purer air yet lin

gering on their cheeks. Instead of cherishing such illusions, which are something, they are plotting the utter destruction of love, continually cutting it with edged gifts, and snuffing it out in a candle till the end of the year. Then, again, the fear of poverty is a darling theme. They wear something new on Easter-day, lest they should live to walk in rags; turn money at the new moon, to bring returns ; pay a penny for an oyster on St. James's-day, that they may never be in want of a penny; cherish a mole on the neck, as a sure sign of their not dying in a workhouse; with a thousand other conjurations of the like import. If every old saying, wise or unwise, originally had some left-handed alliance with reason, it will be difficult to find it out in our London ones. I grant it is unlucky to break a looking-glass, or to tumble down stairs; but it requires a quick apprehension to discover why tumbling up stairs is emblematic of a wedding. There is no study to which I am more alive than the searching into the primitive meaning of things of apparently no meaning. But here I am baffled in almost every attempt. By mere accident, for these mysteries are seldom blazed abroad, I lately discovered a worthy lady of my acquaintance in the act of carefully conveying into her new house a prayer-book, a black cat, and a little salt. This odd combination puzzled me exceedingly. She knew no more of it than myself, except, as she told me with a significant nod, that it might prevent worse harm than any body could answer for. I can account for certain strange freaks in rats and mice being looked upon as forerunners of death; because the fatal omens of screech-owls, cocks crowing at midnight, ravens, dogs howling, and cherry-trees twice blossoming in the same year, being essentially rural, and therefore impracticable for town-folks, they very discreetly make up the deficiency from their own live stock. Two transplantations from the farm-yard have been sadly distorted. We have no cows whose udders may become sore, no hens to pine away, yet we insist on auguring with a painful interest on the milk boiling over the saucepan, or the burning of egg-shells, asserting that the one causes pimples on the face, and that the other gives the tooth-ache. So greedy are we after superstitions, that, not content with those of our natural, or rather unnatural growth, we must steal a few from our "Country Cousins," colouring them, as gipsies serve children, to make them pass for our own. Nor can I take leave of this subject without noting down our predilection for cutting our corns at the wane of the moon, in imitation of those farmers of the old school who make choice of that lucky half of the month for the cutting of their corn.

Oh! London-with reverence be it spoken, and the more reverently inasmuch as I am one of thy illegitimate sons-I say, old mother, thou art a very credulous hag, worried to death by an eternal round of wonderful signs and significant wonders, a doting beldam, swarming in every wrinkle with impossible notions, and rouged up to the eyes with blushing honours thick upon thee," which, to thy silly thinking, hide all thine imperfections. There she sits cross-legged for luck! Her left hand on a heap of modern discoveries and works on science, and in her right she twirls a tea-cup, peering at her

fortune in the dregs. What a motley robe she wears! She always had a taste for patch-work. When the mantle of philosophy was presented to her, of course she was proud of the compliment, but thought its simplicity unbecoming, and could not be persuaded to wear it otherwise than as an under-garment. You may catch a peep at it through those two rents, once occupied by Demonology and Witchcraft, both torn away much against her will-indeed she still has a sneaking fondness for the latter, as is observable in her partiality for a horse-shoe at the threshold. Would you believe it?she wears upon her head a beautiful, a glorious, an immortal crown, immortal as the hands of the Muses who wove it; yet the ungrateful harridan, the tawdry fool, covers it over with artificial flowers and peacock's feathers. Why so chary, thou tenacious woman, of thy wedding ring? Not take it for a minute from your finger? "Alas! no, not for a moment-a thousand misfortunes might befall me !" Her ladyship has an endless stock of fancies. She would rather you spilt her choicest wines than a grain of salt. To cross knives in her company will make her cross for a whole day. Thirteen at dinner take away her appetite. She never can consent to begin a work, or turn a feather-bed, on a Friday; but to pass inadvertently under a ladder makes a Friday of any day in the week. Rainy weather is foretold to a certainty by her left brow itching, or by her cat sneezing and washing her face; and the auspices of St. Swithin's day have never been known to fail. If she has any thing stolen from her, the ceremony of a key in a Bible will find out the thief. Though she cannot abide a squinting woman, yet she has been frequently convicted of exchanging an agreeable ogle with male obliquity, for he bodeth good, more particularly if met at the corner of a street, or opposite a church. She recommends every body troubled with a wen

to bribe Jack Ketch for the touch of a dead felon's hand. In ber great love for little children, she bites off their nails lest they should become pickpockets. Should one of the dear little creatures cut an eye-tooth first, she comforts herself for the misfortune, in promising to take special care, whenever it is shed, to sprinkle it with salt and throw it in the fire. Few things give her pleasure; among them may be reckoned getting accidentally out of bed left leg first, putting clothes on wrong side outwards, finding a bit of iron, and being followed by a strange black dog. Since the last rise in the rate of postage, she does not much care for seeing a letter in the candle. She sits in the chimney-corner, mourns over a quarrelling coal, watches a stranger on the bar of the grate, and stoops, lower than her age can warrant, to pick up a popgun cinder;-speak quickly, for avarice and the dread of death are upon thee-is it a purse or a coffin? "Good lack!-a coffin!"—and the bell rings without a hand; a double shadow of herself glides about the wall; her death-watch ticks, and her winding-sheet is in the taper!

To be angry with a people's superstitions is, generally speaking, to pick a quarrel with humanity. But here they are in so bad a taste, I insist upon being splenetic. And yet we talk of the Highlanders with derision. Come, let us turn round, and have a look at them.